As the World Cup winds down, many Americans will turn from the excitement and agony of football to another beloved pastime: football. American football, to be precise. This year, six Minneapolis co-workers have combined these obsessions with their love of design into a single experience called Football as Football, which reimagines the logos of American football teams in the heraldic language of the great European football clubs. Watch as the mascots and monograms of the NFL take on German, English, Spanish and Italian accents: the design is both hilarious and spot-on.

While the crests are the star of the show, their designers lavished just as much care and attention on the site that presents them. “We wanted a brand for the project to wrap around the experience,” said Garrick Willhite, one member of the team. “We started with an icon, that lead to a logo, that guided the overall look and feel.” To support its vivid and varied imagery — and typography that includes fonts as far afield as Gotham and Hoefler Text — the team chose our Knockout family to use for the site’s webfonts. Originally inspired by sports ephemera, Knockout’s strong and athletic character makes it an apt choice for the project, and applied in a studied and subdued way, it supports the art instead of competing with it — just as a good team player should. —NW